Competition Day 1

NEWS OF THE DAY: OUR FIRST TWO SILVER MEDALS FOR DIVING

The Macau Diving Invitational Competition started today, the long awaited competition which many of the divers were anticipating, training and freaking out for has finally arrived. After long days of imagining their dive moves, pondering on how to improve their various dives and doing land training trying to perfect every single move in their individual hotel rooms, it all boils down to today. Just like any other competition, competing divers were freaking out, and thoughts of what would happen later on in their later dives played like a broken recorder in their head. And all I could do was to give them the support and encouragement they needed to help them through this mind-boggling period.

Early this morning at around 8.30, we reached the Aquatic Centre to practise their dives, it was all going well and everyone was doing their best, trying to improve their dives. When the HK divers started to stream in, though being kinda distracted, they maintained their cool and manage to execute their dives well. 😀

The competiton kicked start with 7 to 8 year old boys and girls doing simple forward jumps straight, tuck and pike position and the same backwards as well. They were quite cute doing the dives and Orla came up with a game where we were supposed to guess which kid would emerge first, but it didn’t really quite work out. 😀 After waiting for another 2 events to complete, it was the platform event where Myra, Xinmin and Bryant were competing in. Giving their hugs and our various well-wishes, they embarked on their very first diving competition which lasted the next half an hour.

It was quite an experience for them, having to cope with the pressure of having other divers standing around them while diving, something which we are really not used to, audience watching you from all angles and judges scrutinizing your every move. The rest of us were at the side of the pool cheering them on, empowering them through this journey which felt long-lasting. Staring at them from the side of the pool, they exude a certain aura, though only diving for merely 6 months, they had the attitude of experienced divers. Though there were many divers at the platform, they were the ones who stood out from the rest, the attitude towards their move.

And all the freaking out had paid off, despite their 6 months training, they executed dives that divers of 2 years could do (quoting a Macau coach). ‘Every whole got through the hole’ as what we wanted (Enyun’s saying). Though there were mistakes made, it was all in all a great experience, both to the competitors and us. Though our screams and shoutouts to the competitors echoed throughout the entire arena may have attracted much attention from the spectators, but to the competitors, I’m sure it was the extra boost they needed to give them the additional push towards a better and greater dive.

Tomorrow is another competition day for the springboard divers:) Wishing them all the best and hope they will do well and bring back more medals to Singapore.